In reply to your message below, I have three questions:
(a) Can you point to existing documentation, such as working-group
notes, draft proposals, etc, which clearly state that this proposal
is -not- intended for hard-drive manufacturers? Preferred sources
would be URL's to web pages which were online -before- the Register's
story---otherwise, the suspicion among many will be that Intel (and
others) are backpedalling after extremely negative public reaction.
(b) It seems peculiar that this is aimed at CF in the first place.
The dominant consumer devices using CF are digital still-picture
cameras, which cannot be a copyright concern to the major commercial
content producers. And while it is conceivable that their concern is
audio downloads into MP3-playing devices, encrypting the storage -on-
the device is only meaningful if (1) CF cards are sold with prerecorded
content---a dubious business proposition at best---or (2) the entire
path from web through computer to CF card programming is similarly
protected, which lands us squarely in the problem is accomplishing
this in (so far) unsecured hardware---and again it starts looking like
this is the start of a process to make the hard disks themselves
secured, along with software on the machine which is protected by the
anticircumvention language of the DMCA. [Or (3) special-purpose
devices which do nothing but connect to a web site---how?---and load
the CF with content, which is another dubious business proposition.]
[Note carefully that I am -not- asking, "What have -consumers- asked
for?", because it is vanishingly unlikely that so-called consumers
-ever- ask for -any- form of content protection, which invariably
makes their lives more difficult and asserts the implicit assumption
that all paying customers are in reality thieves.]
(c) Because of (a) and especially (b), it still looks like this
proposal is the nose under the tent towards exactly what the Register
article complained about---securing hard disks themselves. What
assurances can you give that this will -never- happen? Are there
citations to printed and/or online sources which explain this position?
I await your clarification of these issues. Thank you for your time.
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 06:35:10 -0500
From: Dave Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "Gelsinger, Patrick P" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Dave -
>
>As a regular reader of your IP reader, I would apprecaite you diseminating a
>correction to your mailing on Dec 22.
>
>Content protection technology misinformation generates negative web-press
>coverage:
>
>An article on The Register website "Stealth plan puts copy protection into
>every hard drive" contains false information that the 4C's (Intel, IBM, MEI,
>Toshiba) Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) is to be applied to
>all PC hard drives. It is misinterpreting a specification for use of CPRM
>with the Compact Flash media format (which supports either semiconductor
>flash memory or IBM microdrives) probably because Compact Flash uses the
>same command protocol interface as standard PC harddrives. The technology
>is neither intended nor licensed for use with PC harddrives and is optional
>even for the supported media types (flash memory and microdrives). John
>Gilmore, a noted privacy and consumer advocate, has picked up the article
>and further propagated the erroneous information and mentioned Intel
>"IBM&Intel push copy protection into ordinary disk drives". I have alerted
>public relations at Intel and are disseminating accurate information within
>Intel and among our industry contacts.
>
> Pat.
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